


The Rain and The Sun

by bookworm03



Series: This Is War [2]
Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Galactic War AU, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 23:43:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5804923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm03/pseuds/bookworm03
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For as long as Ben Wyatt can remember, the rain's been trying to tell him something. Galactic War AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rain and The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt for a rainy (snowy?) day: I would love to see you write a scene or two from the Trust Me? universe in Ben's pov. Or even a new part we didn't already see through Leslie in the original fic ;-)
> 
> This is companion piece to Trust Me? (the first part in this series) in this crazy AU I started writing for Ash's birthday. It's not nearly as violent or graphic as the last one, but it does reference it so you have been warned!
> 
> And I love writing this AU now so if you want to send me more prompts you should. :D 
> 
> Comments/kudos make my day. I hope you like it!

He’s always liked the rain.

When he was a child his grandfather liked to sit outside on their porch and watch every storm. Ben would sit with him, watch the grey-green clouds roll in, watch the lightning slice through the sky, feel the electricity buzz beneath his skin as if he was being charged from the ground up and feel the shiver roll through him at the clap of thunder.

It was these moments, shared with the most significant father figure in his life, that would ground Ben, bring him peace when the world around him was shattering like broken glass. He wouldn’t realize that until much later though.

The day his grandfather died - he was fifteen - it poured. Lightning crackled and thunder boomed so loudly the funeral procession kept being interrupted. The gravesite was a blistery mess of leaves and puddles, his hair was plastered to his skull and he could barely make out the ominous shape of a coffin being lowered into a ground.

It masked his tears, which his father (who burying _his own father)_ would’ve likely made a comment about. For that Ben was grateful.

He sat on the porch by himself that night, sobbed uncontrollably, and fell asleep curled in a chair, surrounded by the smell of damp wood. It would imprint on his brain that night. For the rest of his life that smell would remind him of his grandfather. He’s not much for significance or signs from above, but it’s hard to feel like this wasn’t one. It’s hard to feel like his grandfather wasn’t trying to tell him something that night.

For the rest of his life it will feel like the rain’s trying to tell him something.

*****

It’s his vote that will send them to war.

Not technically. Technically every single vote matters just as much as his does, but they’re split when they finally come to him. He’s 99th to go thanks to the last name _Wyatt_ . His vote to proceed with the conflict sends the entire colony into chaos. He was advised, of course. He’s too young, too green to make decisions like these and his advisors tell him what to do, but at the end of the day it is _his_ decision and he makes it.

He regrets it instantly.

He watches the rationing start, watches the men and women in suit up and head for the training base at the capital. He watches industries shut down, people get fired, he watches the unemployment rate climb to unprecedented levels.

It’s a particularly dry season, so the agriculture industry is struggling as well. Ben watches the war consume them and gets daily reports of who from their region was killed. They lose badly for the first while and he feels like he’ll probably be executed as soon as the enemy arrives and maybe that will be better than leading anyone anywhere.

He gets impeached before that happens and replaced by someone much older, much more authoritative and much more together. His parents - who live apart - want nothing to do with him.

He signs up for the service as soon as he leaves his office for the last time. He’s sitting on his bed in the training facility, staring at his standard-issue uniform folded neatly on a chair, when it starts to pour again. Ben can’t go outside, so he stands at window and watches the rain carve patterns along the glass.

As always, the rain’s trying to tell him something.

He takes it to mean he made the right decision.

*****

It rains the night he meets her.

She’s unconscious on a bed in the medical bay, handcuffed of course, though her file suggests she has no combat experience. She’s a pilot not a soldier; her standard issue weapon would be better suited for taking her own life than anyone else’s, but he orders two guards to stand watch while she’s there anyway.

She sleeps for six days.

He checks on her twice, talks to the doctor on site, and confirms she’s healing fine and will live.

On the evening of the sixth day it rains again, just droplets rapping gently against the window of his quarters.

It’s that night Ben gets the call she’s awake.

It’s the first time in a long time he’s realized the rain had something to say.

*****

It pours - torrentially - the night they sleep in a cave while on the run. It gives them cover they shouldn’t have, allows them to build a fire and stay dry in some magnificent stroke of luck that couldn’t be explained as anything else. Lieutenant Leslie Knope still looks like her nerves are shattered, but she seems to trust him now. Her clear, electric blue eyes make him shiver the same way a crack of lightning does and the first time she laughs it rolls through him like thunder.

The wind whistles around them after he takes her hand for the first time and he feels her skull lolling against his. She’s soft and warm and he wishes he could give her more - more than an existence, he feels like she deserves a life. He thinks of her in the old video footage he watched, sparkling and defiant. He wonders where he would be now if he’d been as brave as her, as strong-willed and fearless...if he’d done what he believed to be true instead of what other people convinced him made sense.

There’s no damp wood to filter through his nostrils, but the air is heavy and fragrant with the sweet smell of her skin. For as disgusting as her living conditions have been for the past forty-plus days, he can practically taste the sugar in his mouth as he drifts to sleep curled around her.

For warmth, obviously.

*****

He’s never wanted to kiss anyone so badly the day she rescues him.

And not because she’s saving his life, but because she’s so wholesome and good and she’s everything he doesn’t have.

She touches his face and his lips, her blue eyes lock on his earnestly and he wants to drown in them. He pushes his nose against hers when they stand and feels her fingers tighten against him. He’s surrounded by fragrant sweetness again and it assaults his senses in a way he doesn’t deserve.

She’s too good, too sweet, too honest for him to let her leave like this, turn her back on everything she’s known, but he’s selfish enough to take it when she insists. He’s selfish enough to understand how badly he needs her, for the safety of his body and probably his soul.

The blackness of space is all he sees when they fly away, but when he finally sleeps - really sleeps - it’s in a cramped bunk with his nose in her neck and his arms curled tightly around her waist. It’s hard to say what they are, but they’ve saved each other in the most literal sense and for the first time since this whole war started he’s at peace that night.

He dreams of the rain and Leslie Knope in his arms in a much different way while pressed against her.

For warmth, obviously.

It feels like he’s wrapped around the sun.  

*****

“Tell me about before.”

It’s a rainy night - though, it rains almost every night in this tropical climate, a light summer rain that’s vastly different from anything he’s experienced before. They’re lying on the couch like sardines and he’s rubbing her ankles. The screen door’s open, curtains flapping in the breeze, the smell of damp wood from their porch filtering in.

 _Their porch_ and it has been for the last eight days.

“Before what? The war?”

Leslie nods.

“There wasn’t much,” he admits as she leans into his knee. It can’t be comfortable, but she doesn’t squirm at all. “School and then…”

“Same here,” she reaches forward and takes his hand with a soft smile. “What would you have done if we hadn’t gone to war?” 

“I honestly don’t know,” he admits with a laugh. “Maybe worked in government, maybe business, maybe been a teacher.”

She gives the smallest of tugs and Ben’s moving, shifting them like he can read her mind, maneuvering so Leslie’s lying on his arm and he’s pressed against the back of the couch and they’re face to face.

He could kiss her now, but he doesn’t. He wants to. If the scent of damp wood grounds him and gives him peace, Leslie Knope makes him feel lighter. Their fingers link on his chest and they breathe evenly in tandem. A clap of thunder shakes the walls.

“Are you scared?” he whispers into her temple. Leslie shakes her head.

“Should I be?”

“Of me?” God no, please never let her be scared of him. He’d already risked his life and abandoned everything he knew, everything _there was_ , to save her and he can’t even imagine what he would do now, given what he feels for her.

He loves her, okay? He doesn’t need the rain to tell him that.

“You never scared me,” she admits heavily. “You obviously should’ve, since…”

_One word from him and she would’ve been dead._

“I didn’t feel like you ever wanted to hurt me,” she takes a breath, nose crinkling with concentration. She does that, he’s noticed. He yearns for a day when he can kiss it every time.

Now, he strokes her thumb instead.

“And then when we...when you pulled me out, I…you made me feel safe. Safer than I had in...as long as I can remember.”

He doesn’t deserve her - her warmth, her radiance - he doesn’t deserve to exist in a world where Leslie Knope, bold, brave and beautiful Leslie Knope, feels better next to him.

*****

Five days after he first kisses her they haven’t done much more. They’ve kissed good morning and goodnight and held hands every time they’ve gone to the market, but he’s never asked for more. She’s still tortured and broken and she still cries out for him in the middle of the night, and trembles so hard she finally sleeps out of exhaustion.

It’s raining again, as usual, and she opens the screen without him a word from him. She shoots him a small smile and crawls over to the couch where he’s sprawled.

“What’s up?” He reaches for her hand. Leslie shrugs, her shoulders curving softly under his palms now that she’s no longer skin and bones.

“I’m going to make out with you on your face.”

Ben blinks and starts to sit up, but Leslie straddles him and shifts another pillow behind his head.

“Uh, what?”

“You kissed me and it was awesome.”

“I did,” Ben clears his throat and his cheeks grow hot. “I did do that.”

Her palms slide up his chest. “And you said you love me.”

He might’ve only _really_ kissed her once, pressed up against their kitchen counter, but he’s probably saying “I love you”  more than he ever has in his life.

“I do love you. So much. I need…” his voice breaks. “I need you to know that.”

Leslie smiles, sunny and beautiful, and his heart swells with affection.

“I love you too, Ben.”

They feel everything more intensely after the lives they’ve led. If he hadn’t gone into the service, hadn’t fucked up and voted to go to war, he wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t be holding Leslie’s waist as she leans forward to brush her lips over his and confesses her love for him. They feel everything more intensely and what he feels now is he’d rather die than lose any part of her.

Ben pushes an errant curl behind her ear.

“So, you wanna make out with me?” he teases. She cackles and if her smile makes him feel lighter, her laugh makes him float.

“Uh huh. On your face.”

“Cool.”

“Uh huh,” she dips down and her lips are on his, curving perfectly as her small hands come to hold his cheeks. Ben murmurs and kisses back, sitting up just a little and sliding his fingers through her hair. Leslie giggles and squeals as their tongues flick and he tugs on her bottom lip just to hear her moan.

Good lord, his dick is rock hard almost instantly. He does his best to conceal it but she moans again and shifts and then…

She pulls back panting and Ben shakes his head. 

“Sorry, sorry, I’m...I know, it’s okay,” he tilts her jaw and holds their foreheads together.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers back even though she has nothing to be sorry for. He knows what his men did - not just that one _incident_ but every time they went in there - rubbing against her, treating her like a sex cushion instead of…

He knows. It’s why he started tending to her himself. It’s why he dug his heels in when they tried to order him away for a few days.

“Honey, it’s okay,” he rolls her onto her side, sandwiching her against the back of the couch. Ben wishes his penis would understand how not cool its reaction is. She’s not ready and she doesn’t need to be. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“No, no, I’m...obviously that is a normal...bodily response. I’m being…”

“You can’t help it,” he rubs his nose against hers so it crinkles and he can finally kiss the spot he’s been wanting to. “It’s okay. You are having a normal response too and it’s...totally fine.”

Their foreheads rest together and they take pause like that.

“Can we uh...no...pressure, but doing...what we were doing - ”

“The making out,” a little grin plays on the corner of her lips.

“Yes, that, I enjoyed that. Can we do more of that and only that?”

“ _Mhmmm_ ,” she presses her mouth to his and soon the only sounds are the pitter-patter of rain outside, soft breathing and their lips smacking together again and again, until they’re red and raw and they just cuddle up together.

Ben yawns and Leslie kisses his forehead.

“You love the rain.”

“Mhmm,” he nuzzles her and inhales. “When I was a kid my grandpa and I used to sit and listen to it. We’d count claps of thunder and...you know that thing where you count how long between lightning and thunder to see how far away it is?”

She doesn’t answer, but he feels her smile against his skin.

“And then he died when I was a teenager and the day of his funeral it poured and that...just felt…”

“Significant.”

“Right, exactly,” he takes her hand and pulls her knuckles to his lips around another yawn.

“You wanna go to bed?”

“Not yet,” he murmurs and tightens his hold, puckering against her neck. “Let’s stay here a little while longer.”

She tugs a blanket around both of them and snuggles into his chest. They don’t ever make it to bed, falling asleep as they are and staying that way until the dawn breaks, leaving the door unlocked all night. If that worries Leslie she doesn’t let on.

Ben wonders if she knows he keeps a pistol tucked under the sofa just-in-case or if she simply trusts him to take care of them both.

He hopes it’s the latter.

*****

“Honey, honey, honey,” he hears her peppy voice and groans dramatically, hiding under a pillow as clothes are thrown at him. She’s bursting with more energy as each day passes but last night…

He could count the number of times he’s been inside her on one hand and it’s never not been amazing, but last night it finally - _finally_ \- felt like she was there too, connecting with him, building with him, happy and out of her head. Giddy and glowing after their mutual release.

“Beeeeen,” she tugs on his arm. “It’s raining and I have a surprise for you.

“Kay, give it to me,” he burrows tighter under his blankets and he can feel her pouting which makes him grin. His cheeks ache from the strange contortion, but Ben likes it. He likes being happy.

“Ben Wyatt, get your ass up or I’ll get it up for you.”

“Les, it’s like…” he lifts his head and frowns. “The sun’s barely up and it’s rainy and miserable. Just come back to bed and show me your surprise - ”

Ben yelps when she tackles him and, with all her might, drags him onto his feet buck naked. She starts to cackle at the silliness of it all and he chuckles in response, stepping into his boxers and pulling on a t-shirt. His hair is everywhere and she smooths it down and kisses him lightly.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, goofball,” he reaches around and squeezes her butt. Leslie sighs and presses into him.

“Hi.”

“Uh hi,” he squeezes again, trying not to think too hard about how she lets him claim her like that now. The first few weeks there was no way he could’ve grabbed any part of her without bringing everything back but now...now she’s his and he’s hers and it’s...good. So good. He can’t stop flashing to her flushed and freckled skin and bright eyes coming undone beneath him.

What he really wants to do is get down on his knees and worship her, but she always asks for his eyes right now. They’ll get there. He can’t wait to taste her. 

“I think my surprise should be in this bed,” he murmurs. “And it should be you without clothes on.”

She laughs and murmurs _later_ , peeling away and dragging him by the hand through their little house. It’s raining, as she said, just a light drizzle right now that makes everything feel cooler. The door’s already open and they push through the screen and onto the porch.

Ben blinks in the corner at a hammock that was definitely not there when he took her to bed last night.

“When did you...what’s…?”

“I saw it at the market yesterday and I wanted to surprise you! It’s shielded from the rain, see? And I got a bunch of blankets and pillows and I thought it would be a nice place to lie out and listen to the storms since we get them all the time here. What do you think?”

Ben thinks that thanks to Leslie Knope he might just die happy.

“Come, try it out,” she pushes him forward and Ben braces himself as he climbs into the ropes. He sighs when he settles and holds out an arm. Leslie grins and climbs on top of him, exhaling contently.

“Can I go back to sleep now?” he murmurs once they’re swaying comfortably, wrapped in blankets. Leslie kisses the center of his chest and nods.

“First, answer me this, is the rain trying to tell you something today?”

Ben grins into her hair.

“Yes,” he rubs her side. “It’s saying you’re what I went through fifteen years of hell for and every minute of that was worth it if it led to this.”

There are tears in her eyes when she lifts her head and he rubs his nose against hers, which crinkles in response.

Yeah, he can definitely die happy now.

“And it’s saying _Leslie shhhhh, let Ben sleep a little longer and then he’ll thank you properly_.”

Her body shakes with snickers as he wraps them up tighter and slips back off to sleep.

He’s got the rain and the sun on his side now - you can’t ask for much more than that.


End file.
